


Miles To Go

by Lunarium



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Horror, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Trauma, Promises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:10:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost





	Miles To Go

**Author's Note:**

> Poem inspiration is Robert Frost's [Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening), and parts of it appears in the fic. Also written for the Sheith Month 2017! Prompt was "Promise." :)

Shiro was never one to break a promise, and he would not let something as trivial as being captured by aliens, tortured, and forced to fight in gladiators on a near-weekly basis stop him. Under the deliverance of silence and the night, when they had finally let him be, in the darkness his hand wandered back to his lips where it still tingled with the touch of Keith’s lips on him, kissing him, perhaps many months or years ago. 

He had known. The muscles of his shoulders and back tensed with that final embrace as if his very core knew it would be the last time despite the many reassurances that Shiro would return soon. 

When at last Keith’s face broke into a smile, behind the usual softness was something fiery, an encouragement that Shiro was only beginning to understand, shivering and afraid and alone in the Galra prison cell. 

And each time he came close to death, close to giving up, he remembered Keith and his promise.

⁂

When he had come to, he was lying on a couch, the scent familiar. It took a moment to place it, and just as as the name came to his lips his eyelids cracked partly open, just enough to see that Keith was seating beside him. He did not notice Shiro was conscious, and the expression on his face was that of mingled joy and denial.

Shiro, still dizzy from the ordeals on the Galra fleet and from the sedatives, could not say anything, but just as sleep washed over him again he smiled internally. 

_I kept my promise, Keith. I returned._

⁂

The second time Keith almost lost Shiro, he was right there beside him. The Paladins, Princess Allura, and Coran had found them a little too late.

Shiro did not wish to make any promises then. He was sure he might break this one. He wasn’t well. He didn’t want to pretend he only needed some stitches and could get back on his feet; the wound was a lot worst then he was letting on. Whatever the witch had done to him was spreading its poison into every part of him. He could feel it vibrating in his very heart, twisting his gut, squeezing his brain, seizing the muscles of his arms and legs. 

He was holding out up until they were being raised into the wormhole. Then at some point while airborne, the first seizure occurred. Keith had found out, panicked, and aborted his Lion to enter his. Shiro came to in Keith’s arms. 

“What happened, Shiro?” he asked as multiple worried voices buzzed on the radio. Shiro could scarcely form complete sentences by this point, but he gripped Keith’s arm as he screamed in panic to the others at the Castle about Shiro’s condition. 

Remembering their conversation from earlier, Shiro hoped Black would take a liking to Keith. He would make a good leader, he thought. 

“Shiro, please!” Keith begged just as things started to fade out again. “You’ll pull through! You’ll pull through!”

⁂

For a time there was the never-ending darkness, a relief from everything he had suffered and endured for the last couple years. Perhaps death, if it were to be like this, was not so bad.

Then a warmth crept up his feet, the first sensation to return in what seemed like an eternity. And then there was sight. 

Back again at the shack, with many books strewn across the table and the occasional emptied box of pizza or can of soda. Finals week, different levels but all the same. Must have been the weekend if they weren’t at the library, or they had snuck off to the shack for some privacy. 

Keith was hunched over a book, smiling dreamily as he read aloud. 

_“Whose woods these are I think I know._  
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.” 

Shiro cracked a smile, but refocused his attention on the book before him. But Keith kept on, in a voice so entranced by the poet’s language that Shiro too couldn’t help but put the book down and listen. 

_“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,_  
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep!” 

Keith finished with some mild theatric show of his arms, his eyes disappearing into his long fringe. 

Shiro chuckled. “This is how you take breaks from studying? More books and reading?” 

With a shrug of the shoulders, Keith glanced towards the window. “I wonder what a world full of snow is like.” 

“We can vacation somewhere with snow. I’ll take you.” 

Keith cracked a smile. “Promise?”

⁂

When Shiro awoke in the healing pod, it was not hard to miss the softest smile that Keith was giving him.

_You returned._

⁂

It seemed the universe was intent on ripping them apart. Keith kept returning to the site of the last battle, but no trace of Shiro could he find. In time, the search for a new Black Paladin had to be embarked. In time, Keith had to embrace his new role. Shiro had wanted this for him.

When the Black Lion honed in on a slow approaching ship, Keith dared himself to believe. It could not have been anyone but Shiro. 

He was not prepared for the heartbreak, for the silent anger, for the guilt in hating an innocent man who wore his beloved’s face.

⁂

When he found Shiro at last, it was to find him in pieces but still breathing, albeit shallowly. His right arm had been torn at the shoulder, completely parted from the socket, and his torso ripped open for whatever experiments the druids and Galra scientists were conducting.

As the grief and rage shook in his throat, threatening to spill as screams and tears, Keith patched Shiro up as well as he could. 

“Stay with me, Shiro,” Keith said through gritted teeth. 

“Don’t…know…how…got here…” 

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure all that out later. Just stay with me, okay, Shiro?” 

“Keith…”

He helped Shiro up, hoping he could hold out until they were back at the Castle. He held the bloodied robotic arm, uncertain why. He now knew how the other man knew so much about Shiro and the others, about Shiro and Keith, slowly killing Keith these past few months with praises and looks that should have come from the one dying in his arms. 

“Why does this keep happening?” Shiro rasped as they inched towards the awaiting Black Lion. Red would have come scooping them up, Keith thought with a frown. 

Keith gripped his shoulder. “Dunno. Did you piss off a god or something.” 

Laughter would have been detrimental to his condition, but Shiro’s bloodied and agony-worn face cracked a smile, and Keith couldn’t help but think, despite everything, how beautiful he appeared.

⁂

They held hands as they glanced up at Voltron, who would now stand forevermore as a token of peace until, some day, it may be needed again. Shiro was looking far better. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran had worked together in engineering a new arm for him, one with a more Altean design. On his left hand Shiro wore a ring identical to the one Keith wore.

A new promise, a vow made in unison. They had both made their own individually in the past. Shiro returned to him time and time again, and if he couldn’t, Keith would rescue him, however many times it took until it was all over. It wasn’t easy. Even if giving up had seemed the easiest solution. Even when death tempted them. 

Because, as the poem went, which Shiro reminded him the other night as they gazed up at the stars, _The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep._


End file.
